1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to food products and in particular to nuts coated with honey.
2. Description of the Art Practices
It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,545 issued July 17, 1979 to Green et al that nuts may be coated with honey by mixing water with liquid honey and then coating the nuts with the aqueous mixture. It is also described therein that the honey coated nuts are then enrobed with a dry mixture of sugar and starch and that thereafter the nuts are roasted. U.S. Pat. No. 3,671,266 issued June 20, 1972 to Cooper et al describes a process for producing a hexitol coated nut product.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,843 issued Nov. 13, 1962 to Hashimoto describes a process of coating a nutmeat base with a sugary syrup and other ingredients. U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,650 was issued to Chimo et al on Oct. 11, 1977 describing a process for molding confections.
The use of liquid honey for coating nuts is extremely disadvantagous. Few materials are as viscous, sticky and otherwise messy to handle as liquid honey. Liquid honey is also of questionable consistency as the water content is quite variable thus requiring analysis from batch to batch. The question then remains as to how to incorporate honey onto nuts to provide an adequate flavor in a convenient fashion.
The present invention deals with the practice of coating a dried honey onto nuts thereby giving a superior honey flavor and color without the mess of utilizing liquid honey. A product is obtained wherein the sugar, moisture and flavor is uniform. Throughout the specification and claims percentages and ratios are by weight and temperatures are in degrees Celsius unless otherwise indicated.